Past Due
by zacian
Summary: Pushed away from Gloria by the entirety of a region and encouraged on by Sonia, Hop sends and receives letters, but some things remain unsaid.


This fic turned out way longer than I thought it would... it's a doozy but I really had fun writing it and I really love this ship ;; hope you like it!

* * *

It's Sonia's idea, naturally.

She's awake and alight as Hop stares unblinking at the line paper on the desk under his hands, pen aloft between his lazy fingers, waiting for the morning tea to jumpstart his brain, when Sonia claps, and the sound ricochets off the walls of the lab in a harrowing crack like a piston of thunder. Hop starts, knee jumping to slam against the edge of his desk and the pain doesn't register until seconds later, so foggy is his headspace.

"I've got it!" she says, like she's deciphered some cosmic riddle that scientists the world over have been slaving to understand. "You can send her letters."

"Letters…?" Hop looks over at her, a hand rubbing at his injured knee. It becomes known to him in an instant what is meant by her, but Hop doesn't know anything about any letters. "What are you on about?"

His voice is groggy and uncharacteristically low, and Sonia doesn't hear him. He hopes she doesn't hear him, anyway, and that she's not just ignoring him as whatever gears have just been oiled get to turning in her head. "Oh, Hop," she chitters, "I've got stationary in here somewhere, paper with little Luvdisc and Smoochum around the margins, and I've even got an old wax seal stamp that Gran gave me when I was a girl—oh, let me go find it!"

She pushes the chair out from behind her with a resounding scrape and makes her way up the stairs before Hop can question her further. When she returns, she smells like stale binding and doesn't let him protest even as weakly as he tries.

So Hop ends up with red and cream stationary under his elbows instead, Sonia pushing his documents and his stack of books to the side to sit with him. In her twenties and taller than him even without heels, even sitting, the bouncing apples of her cheeks radiate the youth of maybe a six-year-old at arts and crafts, a seven-year-old if he's being generous. The glitter that dolls up the little Minccino at the edges of the paper and the pink ribbon around their ears is old and sloughing off like dust, and it sticks to Hop's fingers and the back of his hands. Sonia collects a smattering of it on her thumb and smears it across the bridge of Hop's nose, and he laughs until the homework is forgotten.

_Dear Gloria_, he starts, and Sonia strikes a line through the words as soon as the comma is hung at the end.

"You've got to be more original than that," she says. "Try again."

_My sweet_ doesn't sound quite right, too cloying; _my love_ is all right and Hop has found himself saying it aloud a few times, but on paper it burns harsh and garish. _Darling_ is old-fashioned and dowdy and _dearest_ is even worse, a relic of a time long past that reminds him of his parents.

He settles on _Gloria_.

The pen becomes a blur in time, blue ink coming to fill the spaces just in between where the Luvdisc kiss so bashfully. Sonia gives it a thorough proofreading from behind the glasses she pulls down from her forelocks, and then Hop does the honors of sticking the letter in an envelope and affixing the stamp on its back.

It's usually him who calls to say goodnight, and it's usually over video call, but Gloria must be tired because his phone beeps and buzzes just before dinner time. He answers on the first ring, rushes from the kitchen with the phone already to his ear, and Sonia takes over on the cooker.

"Hop! Hiya." Beneath the perk of her exclamation her voice is lacking in its usual fervor and cadence. She must be tired indeed.

"Hi, Gloria."

"I miss you loads. Has it really been a week now?"

"And a day," Hop says, moving to the sofa. Sonia is stealing glances from the rising steam of the vegetables in the cast iron, and she doesn't look exactly displeased but like she expects him back soon. "I'm already planning my next trip over, though. How are you?" She can wait.

"Knackered," Gloria says, "and about to go to bed, but this is our routine, isn't it? Can't sleep without hearing from you, no matter how exhausted I am."

Something like electricity shivers through his insides, up the nerves of his arms and through his palms. It's been years, but it's still like this. "Same here. Busy day today?"

"Something like that. Nothing I'm not used to, but I've been in and out of the stadium all day, barely had time to get a bite, and you know how I get on an empty stomach."

Hop fiddles idly with the upholstery. "When I'm in Wyndon next, I'm taking you out to eat. Don't fight me on that, I'll not hear a word of it!"

Her laugh is rough and full. Hop presses the receiver closer to the shell of his ear. "I wasn't planning on it. You can take me out anytime, you know. Feed the beast."

He can almost hear the grin that splits her face. He hopes she can sense his, too, somehow.

"I'll be happy to do it. Oh! There was something I wanted to tell you—ah, I sent you a little something by post." Of course she can't see it, but Hop rubs lightly at the back of his neck. "It should be there in three to five business days."

"A parcel?" Gloria asks, interest piqued.

"Not quite." A pause. "A letter. I was thinking, if you wanted, we could write to each other every once in a while."

"What for? We already call and text every day." There's only confusion in her voice, earnest and wanting to know.

"I know, but I think it'd be nice! Like—love letters, Gloria. Not all the time, just every once in a while."

She quiets for long enough to make Hop wonder if her line's been cut off. "Did Sonia put you up to this?" comes her voice again, and a squeal of laughter rings from the kitchen.

"No! I mean, she suggested it, but I do think it'd be fun!" He coughs a little, clearing his throat of the last of his apprehension. "We could be pen pals. It's something to make the distance feel a bit shorter."

She makes a noise that's not quite a word and conveys hesitation unusual for the girl he knows as Gloria.

"Only if you want to," Hop says again, softer this time.

"I'm no good at that sort of thing," she answers, and _oh_ does she sound tired, "but if it'll make you happy, Hop, I'm well up for it."

* * *

The letter makes it to Wyndon in two days. Hop knows because his phone leaps with her ringtone in the early afternoon and Gloria's voice is bright and cackling on the other line.

"You didn't tell me you were a poet, Hop!" The laughter that bellows from her stomach is as free as ever, and there's a tinge of something so delightful to Hop's ears in it. "This is too good."

She reads aloud, and his face goes hot, palm beginning to slick where he holds the phone.

_Gloria,_

_When we're apart, I feel like a part of me is gone too, lost in Wyndon. It sounds weird, right? But we spent our lives together and we were inseparable as kids, so it's only natural that I'd feel like there's a hole in my chest when you're not with me. You're not my neighbour anymore. You're the Champion, and I'm a professor in the making. I couldn't be more proud of how far we've come, but I long for the simpler times when responsibilities didn't weigh us down and we could just be kids. Do you remember how we used to climb onto the rooftops and count the stars and the Wooloo in the fields together? Do you remember how I used to look at you whenever you laughed? How we used to hold hands even then? I didn't know it at the time, but I was so in love with you._

"Oh, it's like something from a film, it really is—"

_Where do I start with you, Gloria? When did I begin to feel these things? It's hard to say. I like to think I've always harboured these feelings. Maybe they've always lay dormant in me, but all I can say with certainty is that our Gym Challenge brought me closer to you than ever before. Our trials made me realise how unstoppable you are. You're the greatest force to be reckoned with in all of Galar, and I think even in the entire world. I could battle you a million times and still be in awe of your power. I could battle you a million times and still wish for each match to last forever. You're brilliant, the strongest person I've ever met._

_I've only ever had eyes for you. Does that come as a surprise? I should think not. No one can compare. There are millions of pretty girls and handsome boys but I'm blind to all but you. For me, it has always been you, and it will always be you._

_Until our separation is over and we meet again, I hope you hear from you soon._

_Hop_

"Oh, this pulled at my heartstrings, I tell you… Since when do you write like this?"

"I'm not _that_ good at it. Sonia helped me."

"Hmm. But Sonia hasn't got memories of us climbing up onto the rooftops back home to stargaze."

The words are his own, the flow and the lexicon pulled from his vagrant daydreams. That he still daydreams of her is cause for regular prodding from Sonia, but Hop thinks it's ordinary when his affections are for a girl who is anything but. When Gloria breathes out a sigh, something partway between dreamy and delirious, he lets any lingering doubts fall.

"You like it, then?"

"I do. Thank you, Hop."

Gloria starts to go on and on about the latest gossip in the League. There's some talk of Raihan and Leon finally making their debut as an item, officially, and though in any other circumstance he'd be vying to know the goings on of his brother's life, Hop sits and fidgets the pen between his hands, the words of a sonnet already itching to bloom from its tip.

* * *

Her half of the exchange comes sooner than expected. Hop is pleasantly surprised when he doesn't have to wait all that long, peeking out the front door into the letterbox and sorting through heavy envelopes and fashion magazine subscriptions only a handful of times before he sees the envelope he recognizes immediately as hers. It's plain white but her handwriting is hard to mistake for anyone else's, squiggles and sharp lines making up the bulk of it. He tears a neat enough break at the seams, ravenous but careful not to destroy the precious cargo within.

If it hadn't been glaringly obvious who'd sent the letter before, it is now. The unlined paper drips green gel pen in a font that might be illegible to anyone but him. In the four corners, stickers in the shapes of hearts and Pokémon peel from the sheet, one Teddiursa cradling the words "I love you" in its paws.

_Dear Hop,_

_I'm pretty lousy at this, but here goes. I liked your letter a lot. It made me feel fuzzy and warm inside. I put it up on the fridge in my flat so I can look at it every day. Even though we're apart and I miss you like mad it feels like I've got a piece of you here with me._

_I thought about you all day today. I do that a lot, most every day, even when I'm on the pitch. It's kind of distracting, actually. You're easy on the eyes though so it's not really my fault. I always thought you were cute, even when we were kids, but you grew into such a looker. Your eyes are a deep golden colour like honey. Your lips are just as sweet to kiss. I thought about kissing you, mostly. It was kind of annoying. And I thought about how I want you to come to Wyndon and face off against me again, cos when we kiss in front of the crowds that's my favourite. You still owe me lunch too. Or dinner. When you come to Wyndon we should do both to make up for all the time we've spent apart. You can pick the place._

_That's all I've got for now. Write soon_

_Yours forever,_

_Gloria_

Hop's eyes linger on the last two words scribbled above her name, and he scans the paper in full over and over, smiling like it's the best thing he's ever read.

He pins it to the corkboard in his room, and Sonia, tracing each letter with her critical eye, makes a quip about Gloria's literary skill before he ushers her indignantly out the door.

* * *

If there is one thing Hop prides himself on, it's his constant striving to outdo himself. He perches on the staircase of Sonia's lab and lets the window light illuminate his work. His mind is feverish, working overtime as is the case when he's left to his own devices for too long, and his prose becomes a type of sprawling and canorous he hadn't known was in him.

He picks a memory he's sure she's forgot. If she remembers, all the better, but the limited space of her faculties seems reserved for climactic wins and movesets and not for trivial anecdotes from her childhood best friend turned rival turned boyfriend.

It sticks out in Hop's mind, though.

_Gloria,_

_I'm glad my letter has made you as happy as you make me. I get awfully distracted by thoughts of you too. Just the other day while watering Sonia's plants I got to thinking about you and your Rillaboom. Green's always been your favourite colour and I've been seeing it everywhere since you declared it so. It's kind of hard not to, living out here in Wedgehurst, but whenever I see any shade of it, it seems a bit more vibrant than it used to._

_But more than that, I've been thinking lately about how we were as kids. It's a way to ease the pain of waiting, I think, because when I'm not busy with work you're all I think about too. Here's something you'd get a kick out of, if I can get you to remember it: we were 7 or 8 and got stuck in a rainstorm in the middle of the big field out back. We hid under a fallen tree until the rain stopped, and on the way back home you got stuck in some mud. I tried to pull you out but the mud sucked around your boots, and when I finally freed you they were long gone. So I carried you in nothing but your dress and your socks all the way home, and when we got there I promised I'd go and fetch your boots. And I did! I dug them straight out from the dried up muck, brought them to your home and washed them off with a garden hose._

_We got into all sorts of trouble back then. You were always there for me as much as I was for you. We made as great a team as you and your Pokémon, Gloria. I'm trying to parse when exactly I realised you were the only one for me, but I must have always known deep down. How could I not? How could there be anyone else? We were inseparable. I guess that's why it's so hard now. You're only a few stops over but it feels like we're regions apart. Do you ever do it too? Retreat into a memory like you're trying to escape the reality of it all?_

_I don't know. Maybe I need to get out of my own head! My workload has been slowly petering out so I've got more free time, and I can't wait to spend it with you. If we don't have a battle this coming visit, we will the time after that. Promise._

_Love,_

_Hop_

He uses a foil sticker to seal the envelope, one with a Gossifleur on its face that he got from the post office on his last visit along with more stationary—this time not, in fact, on Sonia's insistence.

* * *

The letter he gets in return is a bit more elaborate this time, pink gel pen hearts and an attempt at a bug-eyed Wooloo sketched on the envelope.

Sonia reads it with him, leaning over with her mug of tea like she's soaking in the morning paper.

_Dear Hop,_

_I'm sad to say I don't remember much of that, unfortunately. It sounds like something you'd do though. You were always picking me up when I fell, even when I meant to fall and didn't need any help. What I do remember is you helping me with my maths homework and me ending up not having to cheat after all. That happened more than a few times. It's not as romantic, I know, but you know how my head gets. All Pokémon battles and no room for much else._

_But I do it too. I try to remember and when I do the memories are as soft as you. We worked so well together. I cared about you, even if I was bad at showing it. You were the only one who never got tired of spending time with me, and I never tired of you either. It's tough, being apart like this, but I know we can get through it. We got through everything else we've been thrown into._

_Come to Wyndon already. It's not polite to keep a lady waiting._

_Yours forever and ever,_

_Gloria_

When they've reached the end of it Sonia is dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

"I should have known it back then," she says, halfway to sobbing. "You two were childhood sweethearts."

Hop is about to go for his pen, but Sonia stays his hand, says, "Not before your report is finished," and Hop makes an effort not to pout.

* * *

They fall into something vaguely resembling a schedule. Hop puts his mentor to work reading over his lovesick ramblings once every few days, and she has no objections. Gloria slips him sheets of stickers in some of her envelopes; in others, she leaves thumbprints and a floral scent.

He writes about the time they crafted a makeshift swing out of wood and rope, how they'd taken turns pushing each other till the rope had started to whittle down to thin strands. She goes on about how badly she's pining to battle him already, how none of her other opponents have given her anything close to a challenge.

It's all he can do to keep his head on his shoulders, scrambling to meet deadlines. Everything reminds him of her, especially now, especially when he doesn't see her except over the screen of his Rotom Phone. Dredging up files and keeping meticulous record, his pen starts to wander at times, following his mind. The words are about to flower under his pen and break the monotony when Professor Sonia's words echo: Hop! There's a time and a place! and he lets the instrument clatter to his desk.

He finds time, when Sonia isn't looking, preoccupied with her own phone and with the strange lines she's drawn across her whiteboard. He writes like it's his life's work, signing each piece with a smiling face.

* * *

His memories come sharper with the pen in hand, he finds, spurned by imagination and longing. He remembers like he's replaying a dream, soft light and muted color around the edges.

"It's like riding a bike!" he shouts at eight years old as Gloria crests the hill on Mudbray back, pulling at the ears like she's trying to steer, and as soon as the words have left him she tumbles over the downslope and her skin gives easily where she scrapes her knees and bruises her wrists on impact. All the while that Hop is carrying her home she's wiping at her eyes and refusing to cry. The tears don't leave her till he cleans her wounds, letting her cling to his free hand and dig her thumb into the dip of it when the disinfectant bubbles on the raw pink.

At nine years old he makes his way to the outskirts of town where the soil is drier and the trees are bare of leaves. The daisies don't grow here so he sinks his knees into the grass, not caring for the stains that accumulate at the bottoms of his trouser legs, and uproots a yellow dandelion, says his wishes out loud as he plucks the petals from it knowing no one is around to hear. The last one trembles between his thumb and forefinger before it floats unhurriedly to the ground on _she loves me_.

It's not until later that he finds out from Sonia, with her hands on her hips and the know-it-all glint in her eyes, that dandelions are not flowers but weeds, but they remain his favorites for years long after.

In the years before and in between, he sits slack-jawed in front of the TV's glow and watches and waits for his brother. Leon comes home with arms full of gifts and then full of Hop himself when he tackles Leon before he's even fully through the doorway, and Leon has a harder time lifting him with each passing year. He comes with bags full of glitzy wrapping paper and chocolate bars tucked in shiny foil and letters that Hop can't make out—Kalosian, Sonia informs him primly—king size chocolate bars at that. Hop's tooth is as sweet as any other six-year-old's (or seven-year-old's, or eight-year-old's), but he waits till Leon is gone and Gloria comes by, offering what little she has in exchange for something Hop's parents picked out, and he splits the chocolate bar down the middle on the countertop. It never breaks cleanly. Hop always slides the bigger half to her, met with no protest whatsoever.

He babbles about Leon every day and Gloria never rolls her eyes at him, just seems happy if not a bit mystified by it all. His one track mind only starts to derail when he notices the way Gloria's eyes light up when she finds that the chocolate is filled with milk cream and caramel, the way she asks Hop to read off the label for her and so he pretends he can speak the language and tries to make the syllables sound as pretty as he's starting to think she is.

By that time it is far too late. He's gone off course and can't pull back and doesn't want to, doesn't mind it, but she's his friend and it would be silly to entertain the swoon in his belly when she is a girl cut from brimstone who doesn't think about those things. He pushes the idle thoughts down and climbs trees with her, and doesn't stop on the feeling he gets when she takes his hand and pulls him up onto the highest branch, when they sit in a silence that shouldn't last as long as it does and watch the dusk come down to the valley.

But it comes to a head when she comes of age and becomes a thing of uproar rather than beauty, made of muscle and power. She wins and wins and wins, and she never boasts over him, never laughs in the mean way, but she doesn't fret or tend to his wounds either. She says "Well met!" in an exaggeratedly posh tenor, they both grin, and he reaches a hand out to deposit her earnings into her open palm. He shakes her hand before she can do it first, knowing he can't hug her like he used not, not now, not when the pest of a feeling is making its return.

At thirteen, she goes into the Pokémon Center to perfect her strategy of stocking up on Max Potions and Revives, but she runs out of money just short of the total—_"Blast it to bits! Hop, have you got five quid to lend me?"_—and she never pays him back and he never asks. She beats him that same day, and he jokes that he would have won if it weren't for his earlier generosity.

He runs. Not from her—never from her—but he runs. Their paths cross many times given that they're on the same Gym Challenge, but he thinks the timing is a little too perfect every time, or maybe his coordination is better than he thinks, because he slams on the brakes just in time at each crossroads. He stretches his arms and crows "Battle me!" knowing it's the one thing she'll never shoot him down on.

Eventually he allows himself to think about her like she's not his best friend once more, knowing he can't fight it any longer when she scrunches up her face upon a particularly vicious win and his heart shudders between sinking and leaping. He's learned that much at least. He ladles curry onto his Corvisquire's plate, sits by the tent with his thoughts and begins to remember why he doesn't like being alone with them in the first place.

It goes like this:

They're on the precipice of it, something big, high up and wedged between the mist, alone together at the peak overlooking the only world they've ever known. The wind is shrill and cold against his fingertips and he brings them through her hair, brings her face and hands to his own. There's something important on his lips, something beautiful, but she dodges and skitters and makes haste down into the moor and is swallowed by the swell of the fog. It takes everything in him not to follow her.

He has more than half a plate of leftovers when he's done all the thinking he can stomach for one day, and his Wooloo eyes him worriedly as he passes the food across the table.

As children in the shire they trudge over depressions in the grass where the rain has made the earth sag, tread just as heavily over their words, but Hop says them too fast where Gloria snaps them out succinctly between her teeth and brute tongue. They don't chase each other but race by each other's side, and when Hop is about to veer ahead of her she careens to his front in a burst of slippery motion and he crashes head-on. Even moving in parallel paths they're destined to cross now and again, like there's twine knotted around their waists that won't let them stray from each other.

She yells for him to keep moving, because she'll keep pulling him forward if she has to, doesn't really have a choice in the matter, and her voice is so loud he hardly notices until the last second how far she's gone from him.

Hop blinks.

It's not a daydream, not quite. It's sweltering and his throat hurts like he's burned it or like he's parched. He couldn't write that all down if he tried.

The pen stills in his hand where his thumb brings it upright, hovering it over the paper, glitter silvering on his knuckles. He starts in bursts, at once frantic and hesitating.

_Have you always loved me as much as I've always loved you?_

_When did you start to feel it?_

_What were you so afraid of?_

_Do you believe in fate?_

His eyes jump around the outline of that last question. The pen pushes into the spine of the first letter but he can't find it in himself to bring the line through.

He crumples the paper and weighs the ball judiciously in his hand for a moment before chucking it into the bin.

* * *

Sonia decides that his best work is good enough when he submits it, vibrating like he's about to burst. She hugs him like she's sending him out to war, and Hop goes to Wyndon on short notice, taking nothing but his puffiest coat and all of his pocket money, knowing Gloria will be hungry and complaining of it like she's been starved. She's at the station when he pulls in, and she hurries him off the platform and into the alleyways before the crowds can form, kissing him behind a bakery choked with the smell of early morning dough rising.

They spend the day like that, zigzagging in and out of view, laughing like it's a game. He buys her a plateful of food at the nicest place they come across and she eats it all and takes a quarter of his, and then she rushes him out to the boutiques and makes him try on a million things with her that they'll never buy. It's fun, even when he realizes the only reason he hasn't been kicked out is because he's the Champion's tagalong, and the clerk eyes him with a tight smile to confirm his suspicions.

At night she points to the Ferris wheel that's lit up in too many colors all blurring into one another. How it is that they haven't been on the Wyndon Wheel before, Hop can't say, but he doesn't need any convincing to shell out the last of his pocket money to the operator and clamber into one of the cars with her.

It's as nice a night as any for it. Wyndon seems to slow beneath the crawl of the wheel up into the sky. Gloria stares down through the glass under her feet, and then she looks at him with a ruinous twitch in her grin that makes him wonder for a moment if she's not about to start rocking the car.

Instead she says, "I've been waiting on your next letter, you know. I hope it hasn't got lost in transit." She has more faith in him than most people do.

"I haven't sent it yet," Hop confesses, like he's admitting to some crime or some guilt. "I'm going to, mind! I just haven't found the words for it yet, I guess."

She gasps, putting on her best mirage of being gravely affronted. "_What…?_ And here I thought you were on your way to becoming a writer! What's got you so stumped?"

Hop leans his head on the glass behind him, looking over at her. Even now, several years settled into her role as Champion, she's a far cry but a welcome change from Leon's poise and regality. She's boldly refused and resisted all attempts to fit her into the looks of the nobility, donning the plasters on her knees and fingers like badges of honor, wearing the campfire smoke that permeates her clothing like perfume. She looks more like she belongs to the underbrush than in the city, but she fits into Wyndon just as well, moving seamlessly with the thrum that never stops.

Hop knows her better than he knows anyone else like this, when she is looking at him with honest eyes and a smile that won't back down.

"I don't know. I've got too much on my mind when I try, and I can't settle on any one thing."

"Loud and clear." She nods, sympathetic. "I get that way, too. It helps to ground yourself in the present when that happens. That's what I've heard, at least."

They're creeping on the uptake now, and he can see almost the entirety of Wyndon, the metal and smog making it all feel worlds away from Postwick and Wedgehurst.

"I just wish I knew what was going on in your head back then."

The wheel creaks. Gloria scratches at a spot under her eye. "What do you mean?"

"It'll sound strange, but I really do think I've loved you since we were kids. We were so young and I couldn't have known what love was, but I knew I had a feeling in my gut, you know? Like I didn't want to stop at just being friends forever." He focuses on his breathing like Sonia has shown him to do, but the air in here is stale and cloistering. "It felt like I was meant to be with you, like it was fate, but I never could figure out whether you wanted to stay on the same path as me or if you wanted to break free."

They look at each other as if on a dare. Her eyes are big and sad and learning. "This is because my letters were rubbish, isn't it." It's like something is dawning on her that should have been apparent long ago; he can hear in her voice before he sees it that her mouth is falling. "I'm sorry, Hop. It's nothing to do with you. I'm just bad at it, is all."

"Gloria—"

"I'm not saying it to make anybody feel bad, especially not myself." She's not self-deprecating, just self-aware, more so than many would think. "I'm a loudmouth and a showboat and that doesn't translate so well onto paper. I'm not booksmart or well-read like you. That's okay, and I love you for it, but it's not me."

They're up high now. The wind tilts the car forward and backward on a high-pitched shriek before it grinds to a halt right there at the highest point that the wheel can reach. They're at the peak overlooking it all, the tiny unflickering lights of the only world Gloria has anymore, words begging to rush unbidden from their mouths, and there's nowhere for either of them to run.

"But I'm not scared of most things, and you, Hop, are not even among the few. I'm not frightened by you. So since we're here, I might as well talk, yeah? I may not be good at cranking out letters, but I've got a voice and you of all people should know that I can use it."

She doesn't need his permission, but Hop sputters it anyway. She turns to look out at Wyndon once more.

"When we were kids, I barely knew left from right. I was never smart in the ways that mattered and I had all the grace and tact of a Spinda. If it weren't for you, I might've got myself lost forever, or worse, and I know for a fact I wouldn't be who I am today. You were there by my side when I took up too much space for the other children to feel anything but afraid or annoyed with me. How does a girl like me end up with only one close friend her whole life, anyway?"

She shifts to tuck her knee under her chin, still looking out to the farthest point of all she can see below. "You were my world. I don't know when I started to look at you the way kids do when they like-like somebody, 'cause truthfully my memory's shot just like the rest of my wits. I don't know if there even is such a thing as fate, either, and if there is I don't know if I'd believe in it the way you do. I hardly think it matters. I love you, Hop. You _know_ I do, and if you ever get to doubting it you'll be sorry."

He wouldn't dream of it. The pressure pent up in his chest begins to fall just as they do, the wheel coming back around and down with a grating that hurts their ears, and Gloria looks at him at last. She's not smiling, but she's not frowning either.

He has something on his lips, something meaningful, but she leans in and steals it from him with her own, kisses him like she's making up for lost time. He says "I love you" when they part and is about to come up with a slew of other things to say on the spot until they realize they're all the way back on the ground again.

His boots feel as feather-light on the street as his pockets, and Gloria takes him to the nearest pâtisserie, croons "My treat" sweetly into the curve of his mouth like she's doing him a saintly favor. He chooses something with chocolate and mousse and splits it right down the middle.

* * *

At seven years old they fall asleep in the garden on a midsummer day at a family barbecue, and he spends the evening patiently lathering ointment into the reddening patches of her shoulders while she snivels and curses Solgaleo for bringing its wrath down on her at full force.

At eight years old they carve lines into the dirt with sticks and stones, play noughts and crosses and hopscotch and draw portraits from observation of the Pokémon in the tall grass where they aren't allowed to set foot. They know better, but one day Gloria makes a mad dash down Route 1 going after a Rookidee. Hop follows, and whether it's to join her or to stop her he doesn't remember, but a townsman hoists them both up by the armpits and corrals them back into the village, yelling that they should be kept apart for good. No one keeps them apart, so they hop fences and sneak away past borders they aren't supposed to cross, sending the flocks of Wooloo scattering to the far ends of the fields.

She's nine years old when she follows him to the outskirts of town and he picks dandelions for her, weaves them into a crown that he puts through her hair. Ten when it's the winter holidays and she gives up one of her two presents because she knows the toy in her hands has the shape of his favorite Pokémon.

At sixteen they leave indents in the moss that grows at the base of the tree where they carve their initials. Hop's been here before, and there's a faint line with the letters H and G that he brings out in full, in white under the bark with his paring knife, not stopping till the smile on Gloria's face is as wide as it'll stretch. At sixteen he retraces his steps and finds that he's exactly where he was always meant to be.

He goes home to Wedgehurst and she goes home to Wyndon knowing neither place is really home, but when her voice comes through from across the many train tracks he feels like he's right where he needs to be.

He nestles the phone to his ear with his shoulder. "Give me time," he says. "I'm making this one really special."

"I've _been_ giving you time." Gloria's voice is as full of laughter as it is full of impatience. "If you don't hurry this along, I might have to send you another one already."

Hop wouldn't mind that.

Sonia brings him a sheet of paper and an envelope, and he picks up the pen.


End file.
